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Hundreds of activists held a rally in New York City on Saturday afternoon to protest Taiwan’s exclusion from the United Nations and other international organizations. Taiwanese Americans, Chinese dissidents, and international supporters of Taiwan joined force with activists and politicians from Taiwan to push for Taiwan’s international participation as U.N. General Assembly started its new session.

China’s role in excluding Taiwan from the international community of nations was highlighted as activists kicked off their march to the UN Headquarters from the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Hell’s Kitchen. In support of the rally prominent Chinese dissidents Yang Jianli and Teng Biao gave speeches in front of the consulate.

“China’s relentless and increasingly oppressive tactics to exclude Taiwan from the global community have only harmful consequences for mankind,” said Yang Jianli, who was jailed by the Chinese government from 2002 to 2006 for his pro-democracy activism. “Surely Taiwan has much to contribute to the world, and the UN should open its doors to the vibrant democracy of 23 million people.”

Chinese dissident Yang Jianli gives a speech on Sept. 16 in front of the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in New York City to protest China’s blocking of Taiwan from the United Nations and other international organizations. (Paul Huang/The Epoch Times)

The “Keep Taiwan Free” rally was organized by the New York-based Committee for Admission of Taiwan to the UN and was held to coincide with the 72nd Regular Session of the UN General Assembly, which convened on Sept. 12 and runs through Sept. 25. Among those attending was a delegation from the Taiwan United Nations Alliance (TAIUNA)—a Taiwanese NGO that for 14 years has organized an annual trip to the United States to work for Taiwan’s inclusion in the UN.

A crowd of 600 participated in the event, according to organizers. Starting at 4 pm, the marchers walked across Manhattan and eventually reached the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in front of the UN Headquarters at around 5pm. The march was peaceful and caught the attention of many New Yorkers who were strolling through midtown on Saturday afternoon.

Hundreds of activists held a march on Saturday afternoon from the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Hell’s Kitchen to the UN Headquarters on the other side of the Manhattan, to protest Taiwan’s exclusion from the United Nations and other international organizations. (Paul Huang/The Epoch Times)

Ting, a Taiwanese student studying in America, said that she participated in the rally because she wants her country to be recognized by other people, and she feels strongly about Taiwan having such an identity. An estimated 57,000 Taiwanese students are studying internationally around the world, most of them are in countries that don’t recognize Taiwan’s statehood diplomatically, including the United States, where 21,000 Taiwanese students are believed to be studying.

TAIUNA President Michael Tsai, who is also a former Minister of Defense of Taiwan, said that no one should be barred from participation in the UN. Tsai argued that even Palestine, held to be a “non-state entity” by many, was able to join the U.N. as an observer two years ago. So, “why can’t Taiwan?”

Michael Tsai (middle), Taiwan’s former Minister of Defense and president of the Taiwan United Nations Alliance, said that no one should be barred from participation in the UN. (Paul Huang/The Epoch Times)

Hsu Yung-ming, a Taiwanese legislator from the New Power Party flew from Taiwan and joined the rally. “Many people say the push for UN membership is impossible for Taiwan, but they fail to see what’s at stake here,” said Hsu. “Taiwan needs to make its voice heard by the international community. We need to make this an issue, and for the world to see there are 23 million people currently being excluded from the UN.”

Chang Hung-lu and Yu Wan-ju, two other legislators from the Democratic Progressive Party—the current ruling party of Taiwan—also joined the rally. “The fact that China has the power to exclude others from the United Nations is a violation of its founding philosophy, which is supposed to include everyone,” said Yu.

June Lin, one of the young Taiwanese-Americans during the Sept. 16 ‘Keep Taiwan Free’ march, gave a speech at the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza next to the UN Headquarters. (Paul Huang/The Epoch Times)

At Dag Hammarskjold Plaza next to the UN Headquarters, activist students took turns giving speeches supporting Taiwan’s return to the UN. June Lin, one of the young Taiwanese-Americans, said that the recent trial of Lee Ming-che, a Taiwanese citizen imprisoned by China, is the latest example why Taiwan needs to make its voice heard on the international stage.

Taiwan under the name “Republic of China” was kicked out of the UN by the 1971 General Assembly Resolution 2758 to make way for the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan has tried without success to reenter the U.N. since 1993.

NEW YORK—Nearly 10,000 people from 53 countries gathered near the United Nations at Dag Hammarskjold Park on May 13, in a rally supporting Tuidang, a large grassroots movement in which Chinese people renounce their affiliation or support with the Chinese Communist Party.
“China, without communism, is good for the stability of the Chinese society and the peace of the world,” said Yi Rong, organizer of the rally and president of the Tuidang Center, a non-profit organization that solicits and catalogues the renunciation statements. “This rally is to support those who have cut ties with the Chinese regime.”
In addition to Yi Rong, the rally featured speeches by Alan Adler, chair of Friends of Falun Gong, and Manyan Ng of the German International Human Rights Association. A Taiwanese human rights lawyer and the heads of the Falun Dafa Associations in both Taiwan and Hong Kong also spoke. Falun Dafa, most commonly known as Falun Gong, is a traditional Chinese practice of meditation; the Associations of the practice in various countries are voluntary groups that coordinate the public activities of practitioners.
The movement to quit, or renounce, the Chinese Communist Party, called ‘Tuidang’ in Chinese, began shortly after the Chinese-language Epoch Times published the editorial series “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.” The series aimed to shed light on the use of violence and propaganda as key tools of Party rule since the founding of the regime.
David Tompkins, spokesperson of the Tuidang Center. (Frank Fang/Epoch Times)
The Tuidang movement, instead of calling for revolution or protests, “is about persuading Chinese people, one at a time, to understand that what they have experienced is indoctrination, and that the path to freedom for them is to quit the Party,” said David Tompkins, the spokesman for the Tuidang Center.
“We are not against the Chinese people, we are actually for the Chinese people,” he added.
The organization holds a rally annually in May, coinciding with the celebration of Falun Dafa Day on May 13. Tompkins believed the number of Chinese people who have renounced the Party, currenting standing at 237 million, will reach 240 million within a couple of months. The daily number of people quitting is 115,000, he said.
The numbers are based on the figure of renunciation statements registered at tuidang.dajiyuan.com (dajiyuan is the Chinese version of this newspaper) and is publicly verifiable. Tompkins says that volunteers at the Tuidang Center vet the statements received for their veracity.
One of the participants who took place in the rally was Pan Kaixiang, former assistant psychology professor from China’s Zhejiang University, who came to United States a year ago, after quitting the Party in 2005. He was thrown in jail because he was a practitioner of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that has been the target of persecution by the Chinese regime since July 1999.
Pan Kaixiang, former psychology assistant professor in China. (Frank Fang/Epoch Times)
Pan decided to come to support the rally because he believed the Tuidang movement was a sign of “spiritual awakening of the Chinese people, as well as moral awakening.” Pan said that his greatest trauma while in prison was how the regime tried to “change his free-will and soul” with lies, threats, and brainwashing.
A highlight of the rally was when four men and two women stepped to the podium and announced their withdrawals from the Chinese Communist Party.
“I believe the Chinese Communist Party not only pollutes the environment, but it’s behind the greatest pollution of all—the pollution of people’s spiritual environment,” said Jiang Yu from Heilongjiang Province. “Falun Dafa, on the other hand, precisely solves this spiritual pollution.”
The practice teaches slow-moving meditative exercises as well as the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.
In an interview with New York-based New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD), Jiang said that he often used Freegate to access the websites of Epoch Times and NTD, both of which are censored in China. Freegate is an anti-censorship software that allows users to circumvent China’s Great Firewall.

While official Chinese spokespeople were busy slamming the United Nations for drawing attention to rights abuses in the country, Chinese people did not find a great deal to criticize. Even though they were sometimes in the minority—a great deal of other users, an unknown number of which appeared to be regime-funded commentators—many flocked to the social media page of the United Nations online to show their support.
The controversy began on Feb. 16, when Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, described how the Chinese authorities arrest lawyers and intimidate dissidents and NGO workers. She called it “a very worrying pattern.”
“Civil society actors, from lawyers and journalists to NGO workers, have the right to carry out their work, and it is the states’ duty to support and protect them,” said Al Hussein in a statement.
Since July last year over 300 lawyers, legal assistants, staff members of law firms, and social activists have been detained and interrogated by Chinese security forces. One of the most prominent lawyers, Wang Yu, was formally charged on suspicion of “subversion of state power” in January this year.
Wang Yu was one of the lawyers named by Al Hussein to be immediately released unconditionally.
In response, China’s UN envoy released a press statement calling Al Hussein’s remarks “irresponsible” and “biased,” since “all those cases raised involve illegal and criminal activities, and has nothing to do with with restriction of the rights and freedoms.” It called on Al Hussein to look at China’s human rights in a “comprehensive, objective and rational manner.”
China’s criticism of the United Nation did not end there. The next day, during the official press conference, Hong Lei, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Al Hussein’s criticism was “baseless, unjustified and unprofessional.”Hong added “China is a law-governing nation, and everyone stands equal before the law.”
But these remarks—on the heels of what has been seen as mass illegal and extralegal security mobilization against lawyers in China—was strongly rebuked by Internet users. On Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, a user called Hong “shameless,” while another said “I admire how your face is as thick as a steel plate.”
It is hard to know whether users who expressed such sentiments were in the minority or not. A vast number of comments attacked the United Nations for “meddling” in China’s affairs—however, their argumentation and language closely adhered to the official line, and it was thus unclear how many of them were paid commentators, known as the “50 Cent Army,” which is regularly used to swarm against information critical of the regime, and create a false environment of support for the Communist Party.
“Do we have human rights here?” asked a netizen from Beijing. “Aspirin Aasipilin” from Ningxia wondered: “Once we had human rights, would the Party still be in power?”
The simple comment “support UN,” posted to the Sina Weibo page of the United Nations, received many likes from other users.

This news analysis was originally dispatched as part of Epoch Times China email newsletters. Subscribe to the newsletters by filling your email in the “China D-brief” box under this article.
If you were to go by what’s being broadly reported in the press, you’d likely get the impression that the United States was violating some international code in its upcoming $1.83 billion arms sale to Taiwan, and that the move is somehow tied to U.S. warmongering over Chinese politics.
This, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth, but given the proliferation of propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that has found influence in the Western press, it’s necessary to clear things up.
NBC News reported on Dec. 17 that “China summoned a senior U.S. diplomat and threatened to impose sanctions” after the United States announced the arms sale. It quotes the Chinese vice-foreign minister saying the U.S. move “severely damaged China’s sovereignty and security interests.”
It picks up a line that was commonly used in news reports on the arms sale, stating the CCP views Taiwan as a “breakaway province.” It says that while the United States does not formally recognize Taiwan as an independent nation, it has continued arms sales to Taiwan as part of an agreement that started in the 1970s.
Of course, anyone familiar with Chinese history knows the situation is a bit more complicated.
The government in Taiwan used to be broadly recognized as the the official government of China, while the CCP was viewed as a rogue regime.
The United Nations only switched its stance on Taiwan in October 1971 with UN Resolution 2758, which took the “China” seat from Taiwan and passed it to the CCP.
It wasn’t until Jan. 1, 1979, that the United States changed its recognition of the official government of “China” from Taiwan to the CCP.
In other words, the history of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, now being pitched as U.S. hostilities towards China, was actually the exact opposite—it began as arms sales to the official, democratic China, which was (and still is) being threatened by a hostile, totalitarian regime.
Many U.S. news outlets picked up the CCP’s line on the Taiwan arms deal—and if you were to go by the CCP’s state-run news outlets, the deal would look pretty bad. The general line, reported in Xinhua, was that the deal exposes a sort of “mentality” that acts in defiance of international law and regulations, and holds a hostile attitude.
Other CCP sources weighed how it could respond. A report from the CCP’s American Diplomacy Department, Institute of American Studies, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, suggested the CCP could use economic sanctions against the defense industries involved in the arms sale.
The Wall Street Journal picked up a similar analysis as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The angle of its Dec. 17 piece stated the CCP’s “options for punishing U.S. companies involved in the sales are limited.”
The piece also suggests a political agenda on the U.S. side, noting the sale was announced just ahead of Taiwan’s presidential elections, and on the heels of a rare dialogue between CCP leader Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou.
The actual context of the sale was quite different. What the piece fails to mention is that the CCP has been threatening Taiwan over its upcoming presidential elections—which I detailed in a Sept. 1 newsletter.
Between May and June, the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was holding military exercises openly aimed at Taiwan. In an image of the drills released by Chinese state media, PLA officers gave military briefings in front of a map of Taiwan.
IHS Jane’s reported the military exercises coincided with the May 29 visit of Tsai Ing-wen, the candidate for Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, to the United States.
The CCP has been particularly worried about the upcoming Taiwanese elections, since the Democratic Progressive Party favors Taiwanese independence, and is leading in the polls. In fact, if the polls prove true, Tsai Ing-wen will be Taiwan’s next president, and her political party will also hold a legislative majority.
The CCP soon held another military exercise in Inner Mongolia, this time with a clearer message warning Taiwan.
CCTV, one of the CCP’s official mouthpieces, aired a video on July 5 showing military exercises where Chinese soldiers attacked a building modeled after the Taiwanese presidential office.
Quartz reported on the video on July 23, stating “some suggest that the simulated attack is China’s way of reminding Taiwan that it will make good on its promise of invading if Taiwan declares independence.”
The National Interest wrote on July 16 that the CCP’s military was practicing to invade Taiwan.
In light of these incidents, the Taiwanese military released a report on Oct. 27, stating its belief that by 2020 the CCP may invade Taiwan.
Taiwanese news outlet Today, reported “China has completed its planned build-up of joint forces for military engagement against Taiwan and is on its way to ensure victory in a decisive battle by 2020, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said in its National Defence Report—released today (Oct 27).”
It wasn’t until after these incidents that the renewed U.S. arms sales to Taiwan came into play.
On Nov. 19, Senate Armed Services Committee chair Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) issued a letter to the White House questioning why the United States had not continued arms sales to Taiwan under the Obama administration, and requested that the United States continues these sales.
“We are troubled that it has now been over four years—the longest period since the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979—since the administration has notified Congress of a new arms sale package,” the letter states.
The letter also notes that “we remain concerned that China’s ongoing military modernization, and the threat it poses to peace and security in the Taiwan Strait, is not being adequately addressed”
So, taken in full context, the U.S. arms sales to Taiwan were quite different from what is being broadly reported—but you wouldn’t know this history if you were to just go by the CCP’s channels for disinformation.
Additional research by Jenny Li.

NEW YORK—Banners and protesters were never too far from Chinese leader Xi Jinping while he was in Seattle and Washington, D.C., the first two stops of his formal state visit to the United States. Now in New York, where Xi will deliver a keynote speech at the 70th anniversary session of the United Nations on Sept. 28, similar banners are being displayed outside the U.N. headquarters, the Chinese regime’s consulate and permanent mission to the U.N., and near the historic Waldorf Astoria, where Xi is staying.

Among the most prominent and difficult to avoid, are the banners calling for Xi to prosecute his predecessor, the former head of the Communist Party Jiang Zemin. Jiang launched a massive persecution against a popular spiritual practice, Falun Gong, in 1999, and the campaign has hung like a dead weight over Chinese politics ever since.

Over 100 protesters held up these signs on Sept. 26 near the Waldorf Astoria.

Some of the protesters performed the slow moving Falun Gong exercises to music set just loud enough to be heard through the din of traffic. Others handed out pamphlets at street corners for a couple of blocks leading to and from the Waldorf Astoria hotel, the traditional accommodations of choice for overnight stays of dignitaries in New York.

Falun Gong, the traditional Chinese spiritual discipline, became a target for Jiang Zemin when he became frightened by how popular and independent it was. He saw a massive political campaign against the group as a way to amass power in the Party. But the practice was not eradicated, as he hoped, and instead, 16 years later, those who were tortured and put to forced labor are now calling for him to be brought to justice.

Since the end of May, over 180,000 Falun Gong adherents have filed criminal complaints against Jiang for crimes against humanity with China’s highest legal bodies, an act made possible after a change in China’s legal regulations on May 1. Previously, practitioners who tried to lodge complaints against the country’s leader would be thrown in detention, where they faced torture and death.

The evil done by the Communist Party is unrivaled from ancient times to present.

— Yang Jianguo, Falun Gong practitioner

Falun Gong practitioners are calling for Xi Jinping to serve justice to his predecessor because “Jiang Zemin is the one responsible for tens of thousands of practitioners to be abused and tortured, and even killed and have their organs harvested,” said Yi Rong, a Falun Gong spokeswoman in New York and coordinator of the protests during Xi’s stay in the city.

“We want Xi Jinping to stop the persecution, allow practitioners to practice freely throughout China, prosecute Jiang Zemin for the crimes he committed as leader, and get rid of the CCP, and replace it with democracy,” said Alan Adler, the executive director of Friends of Falun Gong, an American nonprofit that advocates for freedom of the practice in China. Adler’s group on Sept. 28 published an open letter in The New York Times appealing to Xi to stop the persecution of the practice.

Alan Adler, the executive director of Friends of Falun Gong, in front of a protest calling on Chinese leader Xi Jinping to end the persecution of Falun Gong in China, in New York on Sept. 26, 2015. (Edward Dye/Epoch Times)

Xi should “just do it already,” Adler continues, because he “has the power and the support of the Chinese people behind him. … The whole world would be grateful.”

Yi Rong hopes that the Chinese leader “releases all Falun Gong practitioners, and allows a peaceful environment for them to freely meditate and believe in truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.”

Yang Jianguo and Jiang Li are two Falun Gong practitioners who recently moved to New York due to the persecution, which is ongoing.

Both of them formed part of a contingent at a designated protest area at Hammarskjold Plaza near the U.N. headquarters. Positioned besides the silent, solemn Falun Gong practitioners were citizens from Thailand and Cambodia, who protested their respective governments by shouting slogans and singing songs.

The slightly chaotic atmosphere did not perturb Yang Jianguo, who said he’s happy to be in a country where people have freedom of expression.

Yang Jianguo at a protest calling on Chinese leader Xi Jinping to bring an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China, at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in front of the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Sept. 26, 2015. (Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times)

“The evil done by the Communist Party is unrivaled from ancient times to present,” Yang announced.

Yang, who arrived from China in August, said his wife was arrested and placed in a labor camp for three years. Yang and other practitioners from the Chinese coastal city of Tianjin submitted a joint criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin while he was still in China in May.

Jiang Li, who once lived in Shanghai and came to the United States in July, also recently filed a complaint against Jiang Zemin (no relation) for the persecution of her mother, father, and five siblings.

Jiang Li at a protest calling on Chinese leader Xi Jinping to bring an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China, at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in front of the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Sept. 26, 2015. (Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times)

Jiang went directly to Beijing to submit her petition on June 26, but was turned down by the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate. She later successfully mailed her petitions.

Jiang and her brothers and sisters all faced workplace discrimination or were threatened with losing their jobs if they didn’t give up Falun Gong. Jiang was fired from her job after she tried to seek redress for her father, who was killed due to persecution in 2009. A mid-ranking official at the Chongqing procuratorate later accidentally revealed to Jiang and her siblings that her father’s organs had been harvested “for scientific specimens.” And this year, Jiang’s mother was hounded by local security forces to the point that she had to go underground.

Not only protest banners were present during the visit of China’s leader. Pro-Communist Party activists also took to the streets with giant red flags; and at the intersection of Lexington and 48th Street, they assaulted protesters. The protesters, who said their homes in China were confiscated without compensation, were carrying signs calling on Xi Jinping to return their homes and consider human rights. At one point, several members of the pro-Communist group surrounded the protesters, including a 7-year-old girl and her aunt. They also attempted to wrap the protesters in their large red flags, as the latter shouted out for help, until the police intervened.

Fu Yuxia (C), and her 7-year-old niece Fu Yuxing, are surrounded by supporters of the Chinese regime after they held up signs opposing the Chinese Communist Party in New York on Sept. 26, 2015. (Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times)

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated, due to a translation error, what a mid-ranking Chinese official told Jiang Li about her father’s organs. Epoch Times regrets the error.